The Wizard of Oz (2005 DVD)
Synopsis We click our heels in anticipation. There's no place like home and no movie like this one. From generation to generation, The Wizard of Oz brings us together - kids, grown-ups, families, friends. The dazzling land of Oz, a dream-come-true world of enchanted forests, dancing scarecrows and singing lions, wraps us in its magic with one great song-filled adventure after another. Based on L. Frank Baum's treasured book series, The Wizard Of Oz was judged the best family film of all time by American Film Institute. And this never-before-seen restoration looks and sounds better than ever. We invite you to embark for the Emerald City on the most famous road in movie history. Dorothy (Judy Garland), Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), Tin Woodman (Jack Haley) and Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) await you on the Yellow Brick Road and "Over the Rainbow." Special features On Disc 1, there are an audio commentary by historian John Fricke (who was born about 11 years after the film's release date), "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" Storybook written in 1900 (10:27), the documentary "Prettier Than Ever: The Restoration of Oz" (11:26), a list of characters in a documentary called "We Haven't Really Met Properly...", consisting of Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton, Charley Grapewin, Clara Blandick, and Terry the dog. This featurette runs for a total of 21 minutes. Disc 2 starts off with the 50-minute documentary "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The Making of a Movie Classic" (February 20, 1990), hosted by Angela Lansbury. In this documentary, some of the interviews take place in an earlier time, before the 1980s. Next, there's the documentary "Memories of Oz" (June 24, 2001). It is about 27-28 minutes long. At that time, only a few members credited in the film have survived. It first aired on the TCM channel. Then there's "The Art of Imagination: A Tribute to Oz" (30 mins.) and "Because of the Wonderful Things it Does: The Legacy of Oz" (25 mins.). Restored from the original 1999 DVD, Harold Arlen's Home Videos now have background music (4:25). One of the deleted scenes from the cutting room floor includes the "If I Only Had a Brain" dance by Ray Bolger (4:10). This is why the film's final cut was only 101 minutes long. A Buddy Ebsen audio track for "If I Only Had a Heart" (1:15) also sounds different to the final film. Next, there's three more deleted scenes -- "Triumphant Return to Emerald City" (1:11), after the Wicked Witch of the West has been killed, "Over the Rainbow Reprise" (1:32), taking place in the Wicked Witch's castle when Dorothy is locked inside the tower, and finally, "The Jitterbug" (3:20), a song that was completely cut from the film, and took place in the Haunted Forest. Next taken from the original DVD, all six tests from "It's a Twister! It's a Twister! The Tornado Tests" are jammed into one clip, eight minutes long. In 1967, a TV series called "Off to See the Wizard" was seen on ABC. All four "We'll Be Right Back" and all four "Coming Next Week" clips are combined into one whole video clip, again, running for a total of four minutes. There are also three "From the Vault" featurettes -- "Another Romance of Celluloid: Electrical Power" (10 min.), an excerpt of "Cavalade of the Academy Awards" (1:44), and "Texas Contest Winners" (one minute long). Now I'll skip to the theatrical trailers. First, there's the 1939 "What is Oz?" teaser (20 seconds). None of the film is mentioned in this clip. It has pretty loud music, though. A real trailer we now get to see is the 1940 "Loew's Cairo Theater" trailer (1:26), which is in black and white only. The first color trailer is from 1949, which includes some alternate takes of the film (2:20). An alternate trailer for "adults" (music only), was also released in 1949, and ran for two minutes. Later in 1970, when the film got its G rating, it released yet another trailer (1:10). Finally, there's the modern trailer distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, and that's when the film was released in theaters "digitally restored". The trailer itself was about 97 seconds long. This disc is jammed with a large amount of stills galleries -- 17 pictures of Oz on Broadway, 17 pre-MGM photos, a montage of sketches and storyboards, a whole lot of costume and makeup test photos, 32 photos of Richard Thorpe's version of "Oz", eight photos of Buddy Ebsen, over 250 photos of how Oz came to life, seven behind-the-scenes photos, a lot of portraits, many special effects stills, some post production images, 18 stills from the deleted scenes, stills from original publicity, the August 15, 1939 Hollywood premiere, the August 17, 1939 New York premiere, the February 29, 1940 Academy Awards ceremony, "Oz" Abroad and "Oz" revivals. Very finally, there's the audio vault. There are three promos -- Leo is on the Air (12 minutes), the radio show "Good News of 1939" (61 minutes), and the Lux Radio Theater Broadcast from Christmas 1950 (60 minutes). There's also the Jukebox, consisting of 18 soundtracks -- "Over the Rainbow" (8 minutes), the Munchkinland sequences (64 minutes), "If I Only Had a Brain" (17 1/2 minutes), "We're Off to See the Wizard" (7 1/2 minutes), "If I Only Had a Heart" (14 minutes), "If I Only Had the Nerve/We're Off to See the Wizard" (15 1/2 minutes), "The Merry Old Land of Oz" (7 minutes), "If I Were King of the Forest" (14 minutes), "The Jitterbug" (16 1/2 minutes), the deleted songs (5 1/2 minutes), Kansas underscoring (19 minutes), Munchkinland underscoring (18 minutes), The Road to Oz underscoring (23 1/2 minutes), Emerald City underscoring (15 minutes), The Witch's Castle underscoring (23 minutes), and the finale (19 1/2 minutes). And last but not least, there's Disc 3. The only modern-age film in this disc is the documentary "L. Frank Baum: The Man Behind the Curtain", which runs for 28 minutes. There are five very old films that were released before the actual film -- a silent 13-minute film (March 24, 1910) with piano music, "The Magic Cloak of Oz" (September 28, 1914), runs for 38 1/2 minutes, the 59-minute silent film "His Majesty, The Scarecrow of Oz" (October 14, 1914), the 1925 feature film (runs 72 minutes, in Sepia Tone), and an eight-minute 1933 cartoon short by Ted Eshbaugh. Note: Disc 3 is coded for Region 1 only. The Canadian version is still coded for Regions 1, 2, 3 and 4, but is missing the 1933 Oz cartoon. You can see the web info on all three discs. In Other Countries (*) The region coding of this DVD is not fully confirmed. This is only a guess. Websites Merchandising *Two-Disc Special Edition (Amazon.com) *Three-Disc Collector's Edition (Amazon.com) Both items were discontinued in late 2008, most likely in October or November. Gallery wizardofoz_mainmenu1.jpg|Main menu (Disc 1) disc1_sceneselections.jpg|Scene selection menu (Disc 1) wizardofoz_languages.jpg|Language menu wizardofoz_specialfeatures1.jpg|Special features (Disc 1) wizardofoz_mainmenu2.jpg|Main menu (Disc 2) disc2_sceneselections.jpg|Scene selection menu (Disc 2) disc2_specialfeatures.jpg|Special features (Disc 2) disc2_webinfo.jpg|Web info (Disc 2) disc3_mainmenu.jpg|Main menu (Disc 3) disc3_webinfo.jpg|Web info (Disc 3) Category:Warner Bros. Category:DVD Category:Released in 2005 Category:Discontinued in 2008